Title 7, AgricultureRelease 119-102

§453 Authority and Duties of Division

Title 7 › CHAPTER 18 — COOPERATIVE MARKETING › § 453

Last updated Aug 21, 2026|Official source

Summary

The division must help farmer-owned associations, their national groups, and their local branches that work together to market and handle farm products. That includes co-ops that do processing, storage, manufacturing, joint buying of farm supplies, lending, insurance, and other cooperative activities. It must gather, study, and share data about cooperatives here and abroad. It can do and publish studies on business, legal, financial, and social issues. It can review a co-op’s books and practices if asked, report the findings, and publish summaries with the co-op’s permission. It can advise groups starting a co-op and analyze markets for their products. It must track crop supplies, demand, trade, and prices and use marketing experts to explain the information. It must also teach cooperative methods, work with schools and agencies, and do other helpful studies.

Full Legal Text

Title 7, §453

Agriculture, Source: USLM XML via OLRC

(a)The division shall render service to associations of producers of agricultural products, and federations and subsidiaries thereof, engaged in the cooperative marketing of agricultural products, including processing, warehousing, manufacturing, storage, the cooperative purchasing of farm supplies, credit, financing, insurance, and other cooperative activities.

(b)The division is authorized—

(1)To acquire, analyze, and disseminate economic, statistical, and historical information regarding the progress, organization, and business methods of cooperative associations in the United States and foreign countries.

(2)To conduct studies of the economic, legal, financial, social, and other phases of cooperation, and publish the results thereof. Such studies shall include the analyses of the organization, operation, financial and merchandising problems of cooperative associations.

(3)To make surveys and analyses if deemed advisable of the accounts and business practices of representative cooperative associations upon their request; to report to the association so surveyed the results thereof; and with the consent of the association so surveyed to publish summaries of the results of such surveys, together with similar facts, for the guidance of cooperative associations and for the purpose of assisting cooperative associations in developing methods of business and market analysis.

(4)To confer and advise with committees or groups of producers, if deemed advisable, that may be desirous of forming a cooperative association and to make an economic survey and analysis of the facts surrounding the production and marketing of the agricultural product or products which the association, if formed, would handle or market.

(5)To acquire from all available sources information concerning crop prospects, supply, demand, current receipts, exports, imports, and prices of the agricultural products handled or marketed by cooperative associations, and to employ qualified commodity marketing specialists to summarize and analyze this information and disseminate the same among cooperative associations and others.

(6)To promote the knowledge of cooperative principles and practices and to cooperate, in promoting such knowledge, with educational and marketing agencies, cooperative associations, and others.

(7)To make such special studies, in the United States and foreign countries, and to acquire and disseminate such information and findings as may be useful in the development and practice of cooperation.

Reference

Citations & Metadata

Citation

7 U.S.C. § 453

Title 7, Agriculture

Last Updated

Aug 21, 2026

Release point: 119-102